Let's talk about singing.

I came up with this new theory to give singers ownership of your own voices. I believe that there are six fundamentals that need to happen to ensure optimum vocal production.

I can up with this theory because singing is confusing and ambiguous and filled with a kind of Chinese whispers of confusing terminology: I mean, belt, legit, twang, tllt, head voice, mix, sob, middle voice, chest voice... Aaaaaaah! These are all adjectives and goals!

Let’s put it this way. When you first learnt to drive a car, you’d break it down into components You’d learn to use your mirrors, to signal, to have road sense, to steer, to use the accelerator, the gears and pedals. Broken down it’s terrifying but a driver does it instinctively: changing gears, accelerating, slowing down, taking tight corners. How good would it be if we could sing like that? Drive through your song, changing gears, accelerating, slowing down, taking tight corners. Belt - for example - isn’t a goal, it’s a terrain. Or road, that calls for an instinctive balance of these fundamentals.

​Singing is the only physical endeavour that people don’t treat like a sport. Any sports person knows that to be on optimum form in a race or a match you will have trained with consistency so that when you are playing or racing you can forget the technique and give over to the other type of thinking instinct, or in the context of singing music and story.

Somehow singing isn’t approached like that. singers call in because they have an audition in two days? They show up adrenaline surging I have an hour to get them to where they want to be in two days time. I hear them sing and think shit, you have so much to bring out your potential - damn it - what’s one or two things that will help you one thing that will help you?I'm going to go deeper in the next blog but I believe that the six fundamentals are: breath, or a steady stream of air connected to your body, jaw release, tongue root release, a free larynx, resonance and adduction.

I believe we should be exploring these six every day! Below are some ideas of exercises that work these fundamentals. You'll see that many of them work all six! These are magic!